Wine? Cheese? Chocolate?

All three delicacies can be made into alcohol (ethanol) fuel to power the Lotus Exige 270E, one of the high tech ecological and environmental research sports cars from Lotus Engineering. At the 2011 Bridgestone Eco Rally from Oxford to London, this weekend, Lotus will be proving that you can have your (cheese) cake and eat it – this stunning high tech sports car has both high performance and ultra low environmental impact.

When running on ethanol, this super quick Exige slingshots to 60 mph in less than four seconds and is one of the quickest road legal cars in the world as well as one of the most environmental. But all you gourmands need not worry, Lotus is not wasting any of Bordeaux’s finest, or depriving cheese lovers from their mature stilton.

No, the ethanol fuel is made from wine that doesn’t quite make drinking grade, from whey (a natural by product of the cheese making process) and from surplus chocolate – you shouldn’t eat too much, eh?

Should you not be able to get hold of any ethanol, then the super efficient Exige 270E will also run on conventional petrol, and on methanol – a potential fuel of the future as it can be made by extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, making it the ultimate carbon neutral fuel.

So what is your vice?

At Group Lotus, it’s all three, but only in moderation and mostly in the fuel tank!